


Flesh Poetry

by tielan



Series: Skin Deep [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Established Relationship, F/M, Marking, Possession, Protectiveness, Sex, Writing on Skin, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:19:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trust and gossip, poetry and warnings, and love in penmanship and the retention of words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo #7 - Writing On The Body

_Maria zipped her jacket up with hurried hands. “I’m already late,” she muttered when he took her shoulders. “I’ll have to go straight there... Steve!”_

_It was just one kiss. And he snagged the paper bag from the sideboard and pushed it into her hand when he drew back. “Dinner.”_

_She rolled her eyes. “Captain ‘Mother Hen’ Rogers.” But he could see she was pleased with the small gesture._

“ _Lieutenant ‘Prickly’ Hill,” he retorted, and stole another kiss. This one was a little longer and a little deeper than the last. Then he pushed her towards the door. “Go be terrifying.”_

_Her glare as the door closed behind her could have melted steel._

_Mostly it made Steve feel ridiculously happy as he went back into his room to strip the stained sheets from the bed._

* * *

Steve was surprised to see Phil coming to meet him on the flight deck.

“Things are still in some chaos right now,” Phil said, surveying the debris that Steve had been forced to avoid while landing. “But things are getting back to normal – or what passes for it around here.”

Steve nodded, glancing around, observing the damage, holding his tongue as long as he could. He looked back at Phil, casually concerned. “I heard Lieutenant Hill and a number of others were injured in the explosion. How are they?”

Natasha sent him the update on the way in, a short and simple text. _Explosion on the helicarrier. Hill in medical. Concussion and some shrapnel injuries, but otherwise alive and fine._

“No deaths. Agent Duli Singh is in major surgery, but everyone else should make a full recovery.” At the entrance to the helicarrier, they waited for a couple of techs to come out. “An interesting thing happened when they got Hill into medical, though.”

“Oh?”

Phil waved Steve in. “They had to cut her uniform off her to get tothe injuries, and found writing all over her body.”

Steve nearly stopped in the doorway, horror filling him. He made himself continue into the corridor, then composed his face to polite curiosity as he turned. “Writing?”

The other man’s expression was bland and unrevealing. “Specifically, love poetry.”

* * *

_The pen didn’t move as smoothly across her skin as he would have liked. He had to take care with each letter, the gentle curve of the ascenders over her shoulderblade_ (love is more thicker than forget) _and the slight waver of the descenders into her spine_ (more thinner than recall).

_Which was probably better. More precise. Only..._

“ _What is it?” Maria lifted her head, met his gaze in the mirror they’d angled so she could see. “Steve?”_

_He traced his fingers down her spine and watched her shiver. Bent down to kiss her shoulder, and cupped her breast, wanting the familiarity and the intimacy of her arch into his caress, wanting to exercise the right to touch her as he liked in this apartment, this room, this bed. He let his teeth scrape lightly over her shoulder and thought about capping the pen, undoing his jeans and taking her like this, with the mirror looking on._

“ _It’s nothing,” he murmured in her ear, letting his lips linger by her earlobe in a sensuous taunt. “I just got distracted for a moment.”_

_Then he retrieved the Sharpie, drew back, and gently stretched taut the pale skin where he’d left off._

_And smiled to himself as Maria shivered with the delicate stroke of the tip against her flesh._

* * *

“I...didn’t realise the Lieutenant was seeing anyone.” Steve thought he managed the lie credibly enough. A little surprise, but not so much that Phil might get suspicious.

 _If you have to lie,_ Barton had said once, _Don’t overact. A little goes a long way._

“I don’t think anyone did.” Phil walked along the corridor, nodding at the people who passed them on their way about their business. “I’m a little shocked, myself.”

Steve felt a sudden wave of antagonism for the man beside him. Since Coulson’s return, he’d gotten to know the man a little better – the hero-worship was daunting, but Coulson was respectful and didn’t go easy on Steve just because Steve was his childhood hero.

He’d thought Coulson saw more in Maria, though. More than Natasha or Barton saw when they confronted him. _She doesn’t love easily,_ was Natasha’s warning, while Barton was more blunt, _Hill keeps herself on ice. The sooner you realise that, the better._

Steve respected their opinions, but this was his life – and Maria’s choice.

“I take it the Lieutenant isn’t known for her romantic relationships, then?”

“No,” Coulson said, “but that’s not the surprising part.”

“Then...”

They reached the elevator to take them down to the office levels. When it arrived empty, they stepped in and Coulson pressed the button.

“I can see how a man who earned the Lieutenant’s trust in bed would want to leave his mark on her,” he said as the car slid down through the floors of the carrier. “In his position, I’d probably feel the same way.”

The words were casual, almost off-hand. No leer or smirk in either Coulson’s expression or voice.

Still, Steve felt hot and uncomfortable beneath his shirt collar.

* * *

“ _It’s Sharpie,” she said when he tugged her back up after she tried to sit down. “It doesn’t need long to dry.”_

_In answer, Steve knelt in front of her and slid his fingers into her pubic curls, finding her clit and stroking it with his thumb, while his fingertips caressed her opening, parting the damp lips to slide a finger into her._

_She was already wet. By the time he finished with her, she’d be dripping._

“ _Oh.” Maria’s hands stroked through his hair. “That.”_

“ _Yes.” Steve bent and licked the tiny pink tip, savouring the salty-musky taste of her and the way her hand clenched in his hair. “This.”_

 _He gave himself over to the taste of her pleasure, and the rough clutch of her fingers against his scalp, and his cheek rubbed against the words he’d written along her inner thigh_ (it is not a word spoken) _as she thrust herself against him._

_Her abandon tasted good._

_A little while later, the sight of her cupping the blackly-marked words on her breasts as he slid into her felt even better._

* * *

Coulson was still talking. “What surprises me is that the Lieutenant trusted someone enough to let him mark her like that and didn’t wash it off when she came to work.”

_Hill keeps herself on ice. The sooner you realise that, the better._

Steve’s mouth was dry, his pulse a throbbing in his head.

They didn’t make promises. One day at a time, as long as it lasted. And they never said ‘the words’. Maria wasn’t one for casual or meaningless declarations. But she’d left Steve’s writing on her, left his poetry on her skin, penmanship and possession like a brand.

_She doesn’t love easily._

And because of her injury there would be gossip about it. Because this was Maria and there was so little about her which made fodder for gossip.

Coulson was watching him with a cool, distant gaze – the same expression he’d worn the morning Steve woke up in Maria’s bed. And this time Steve looked back and said nothing, neither denying nor confirming.

He couldn’t undo what he’d done, but he could protect her with his silence.

After a moment, Coulson nodded. “That man – the one who wrote poetry all over her – should count himself lucky to have her trust,” he added. “And he’d better be worthy of it.”

And Steve heard the warning, loud and clear.

  
_(i do not know what it is about you that closes_   
_and opens; only something in me understands_   
_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_   
_~ e. e. cummings ~_   



End file.
